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The History of Ice Hockey and the NHL

Ice hockey is a game played on ice where two opposing teams of stick wielding skaters try to smash the puck (small, hard rubber disk) through the other team’s goalpost.

Think of soccer but with sticks and full protective body armor and you get the picture.

Its origins derived from field hockey, a popular summer sport in northern Europe. But when winter came around, someone else’s lightbulb lit up (out of boredom) and decided to play the game on ice just for the heck of it.

Although the actual date of the games “invention” is still unclear, it is believed to have originated in Holland circa the 17th century.

To cut a long story short, the game crossed over to North America, Canada in particular, introduced by bored British soldiers stationed in Nova Scotia in the mid 1870’s. There the soldiers organized contests on frozen ponds and shortly thereafter the game caught on with the locals and became an instant hit. It was reported that the first hockey league was organized and launched around 1885 in Kingston, Ontario.

The game eventually caught the attention of the English Governor General of Canada, Lord Stanley of Preston and was so impressed by it that in 1892 he brought with him his favorite silver bowl with a gold interior finish (sans cereals) and declared that it be given annually to the best amateur hockey team in Canada.

The trophy has become known as the famous Stanley Cup that we all know today.

Fast forward to 1904 and to the land of milk and honey, the United States of America. It was here that the first professional hockey league was created and came to be known as the International Pro Hockey League.

Based in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, the pro league folded in just three years’ time but was replaced by an even bigger (ambitious to be exact) league named the National Hockey Association in 1910.

Not to be outdone, the west coast also put up its own league called the Pacific Coast League shortly thereafter and a rivalry was born in 1914.

Then, a transcontinental championship series was formed between the competing leagues with the winner getting the coveted Stanley Cup trophy. When World War I erupted, both leagues were thrown out of proportion and operations skidded to a halt.

It was time for the bunkers then, not tending the goalpost. Shortly after the war, the bigwigs in the hockey world decided to start anew and create an entirely different organization, one that would replace the troubled NHA.

Several club owners convened at the Windsor Hotel in Montreal in 1917 to come up with a solution and from there, the National Hockey League was born.

Consisting of no more than five clubs in its inception, the NHL expanded to ten teams in less than ten years with a little help from the of the PCL which folded due to instability.

Moving on to the present and the world has witnessed the progression of the game and the league which is now made up of 30 teams and three divisions all slugging it out for the prestigious Stanley Cup.

From its humble beginnings in a frosty far away land, ice hockey has now become a popular major international sport with professional franchises battling it out for the services of the best of the more than 300,000 players available in North America alone.

For a sport that is played on ice, it has somehow weathered the test of time.

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